Reforestation Doesn’t Fight Climate Change Unless It’s Done Right

Planting trees in an effort to slow climate change is a complicated solution to a complicated problem — and experts caution that countries looking to implement robust reforestation programs need to be extremely deliberate in the kind of reforestation and forest management that they choose.

“In general, [reforestation] is all good in the sense that trees, as they grow, take carbon out of the atmosphere,” Richard Houghton, a senior scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center, told ThinkProgress. “The more wood you have, the more carbon is on land and out of the atmosphere. That’s the reason why planting trees is good.”

There are, however, a few factors that generally make reforestation a better idea in some parts of the world than in others. In northern boreal forests, for example, planting more trees can actually have a warming effect, even if trees are taking up carbon dioxide as they grow. That’s because trees in boreal forests can obscure snow that falls during winter months, which normally helps to reflect sunlight — and therefore heat. When trees are planted, they absorb the sunlight instead of reflecting it (it’s the same albedo effect principle as melting sea ice in the Arctic — dark ocean absorbs sunlight instead of white ice reflecting sunlight).

The particular kind of forest being planted also contributes to the efficacy of reforestation programs. When forests are planted to mimic natural forests, they can offer more ecosystem benefits than forests simply planted for the sake of planting trees — whether as part of a one-off project or as part of a tree plantation.

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